Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics EJAIB

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8Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 18 (January 2008)Dr Masami Nakata asked whether the energy educationcampaign differentiated between children in big cities andrural areas in Vietnam. Her understanding was that even theelectrification rate in Vietnam was not that high, and thatmany people and children did not even have access to awater tap. What kind of education was necessary for childrenin rural areas who had no access to energy or water? Ms ThiTuyen replied that the campaign was for children in all 64provinces of Vietnam, and that the principles of conservingresources, sharing things and saving money were relevanteverywhere, regardless of how communities accessed wateror electricity. Dr Chemba Raghavan asked about the potentialfor extending the education campaign to the children’sfamilies, particularly mothers, who typically allocateenvironmental and financial resources in the family home. MsThi Tuyen explained that educating families could be difficult,but that the education campaign had involved parents byinviting them to meetings about the fair project, asking themto organize things to bring from home and raising awarenessabout what the children were learning at school.The afternoon session was on Ethics of Nuclear Powerand Alternative Energy Systems. Ms Puttida Suriwong andMr Pahuton Sriwichai, representatives of Thai Youth Leadersfor Ethics in Science and Technology, told the conferenceabout a project they had planned at the joint UNESCO-National Science Museum (NSM) Youth Leaders in Ethics ofScience and Technology Workshop in 2007. The projectwould be done in college dorms, involving a competitionabout which dorm groups could collectively reduce theirelectricity consumption by the greatest amount.Mr Issa Abyad commented that he thought the focus ofthe competition should be on fun, and that the competitioncould be based on a reduction in electricity bills, and thestudents said they had in fact incorporated this into the designof the competition. Dr Chemba Raghavan congratulated thestudents on their initiative and asked for further details on therole play component; she also suggested that the studentsthink about the evaluation component of the project to assesswhether it had actually changed behaviour.Dr Darryl Macer explained that the students had spenttwo days at the workshop in various introductory lectures andgroup activities and games. Over the coming year, UNESCOand partners such as the NSM would probably be holdingyouth leader training workshops with different sets of youngpeople seeding universities. In 2008 there would also besome international youth exchange forums on the ethics ofenergy. If participants or other parties were with a foreignuniversity and wanted to bring some of their students in thesummer holidays to Thailand or another country in the regionUNESCO would try to develop this.Dr Sumittra Charojrochkul from MTEC, Thailand, spokeabout solid oxide fuel cells and the potential they representedas a source of renewable energy that did not depend onclimate or weather. Solid oxide fuel cells were electrochemicalenergy conversion devices which generated energy fromhydrogen (from hydrocarbon) and oxygen (from air). A currentresearch project at Thailand’s National Metal and MaterialsTechnology Center (MTEC) was investigating bioethanolmodification for use as a fuel in solid oxide fuel cells, and theycould provide village-based power.Ms Tanuja Bhattacharajee commented that solid oxidefuel cells were a promising technology. She asked aboutwhether there were any life cycle analyses on the hydrogenused in the fuel cells. Dr Charojrochkul said that she wasaware of some lifecycle analyses but had not done anyherself. Pure hydrogen produced from fossil fuels was notcarbon-neutral, but the hydrogen could also be produced fromother sources, like ethanol, which did not generate extracarbon into the cycle. Phosphoric acid was one type of fuelused as an electrolyte, but for the solid oxide fuel cellphosphoric acid was not used at all. Dr Obelin Sidjabat askedabout electricity production capacity of solid oxide fuel cellsand how big the units were if installed in a village. DrCharojrochkul replied that the 1 kilowatt Swiss-made modelwas about the size of a household fridge. The biggercombined cycle model had a fuel cell of about 150 kilowattwith a micro turbine of another 70 kilowatts. Dr MasamiNakata asked what the lifetime of a solid oxide fuel cell was,and about the cost of electricity generation. Dr Charojrochkulsaid that the capital costs were very expensive, aboutUS$1000 per kilowatt, because production was not on acommercial scale yet. The running or operation costs werecomparable to existing power generation. Regarding thelifetime of the fuel cell, she said that they were currentlytesting this with a view to reaching the standard of othercomparable commercial products. The type of fuel cell shehad been talking about was ceramic, so it did not release anytoxic substances in landfill and was simple to dispose of.Prof S. Panneerselvam from India spoke on ‘Theenvironmental ethical implications of biotechnology as aknowledge-based industry in Tamil Nadu State, India’. Henoted a traditional Indian concept in the word ‘shakti’representing energy and referring to the ‘capacity to do work’.Tamil Nadu state had forest, agricultural and plant resourceswith tremendous biodiversity. There was potential to create acritical mass of industrial activity in biotechnology, in the fieldsof medical healthcare (including diagnostics, vaccines,therapeutics and veterinary drugs), agriculture/food,environmental and industrial products. As India sought toreform the environmental frameworks governing moretraditional industries, the role of bioethics, biosafety, and theethical implications of genetic engineering were important incontemporary society.Prof Panneerselvam’s presentation was followed by adiscussion with Dr Jasdev Rai about theory and practice inthe implementation of Indian law and the role of judicialactivism in significant decisions about environmental rights.Dr Fakrul Islam asked for information on Indian governmentsupport for biotechnology, to which Prof Panneerselvamreplied that government attitudes were changing. Wherepreviously all government assistance had been focused oninformation technology, more resources were now being putinto biotechnology, especially in Tamil Nadu state. Dr AbhikGupta also added that the Indian state and the universitygrants commission were funding new biotechnologydepartments in almost all Indian universities, even at theundergraduate level. Engineering institutes were also beingencouraged to set up new departments such as in agriculturalbiotechnology, biomedical engineering and so on. Theapplications of biotechnology in pharmaceuticals andagriculture were being considered.Dr Tavivat Puntarigvivat expressed concern that a globalbiodiesel industry would soon be captured by multinationals,citing the establishment of huge plantations by US companiesin Latin America. Potentially this would offer no benefit to thepoor who were growing the biomass. Prof Panneerselvamsaid that he thought biodiesel could bring more income andgreater self-sufficiency to the rural poor, but that the industryneeded to be regulated to protect their security. Dr AbhikGupta said that he felt that in these areas a lot of watchdogactivity was needed, particularly from ethicists, andecologists, and particularly for maintaining natural biodiversityof flora and fauna. Another contentious area was benefitsharingand this question of copyright, which had alreadybeen the subject of controversies in India, such as that whicherupted over basmati rice.In his presentation, Dr Robert A. Kanaly from Japanasked participants to reflect on the fact that food was energy,but that it also required energy to obtain food. The productionof meat placed high demands on energy resources and was,at least in US-style systems of intensive factory farming,based on oil and water consumption. This was becausegrowing livestock feed such as corn required large amounts of
Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 18 (January 2008) 9chemical fertilizer and water. The ratio of energy input toprotein output under such a system was poor. Animal proteinwas only 1.4 more nutritious for humans than a comparableamount of plant protein, yet consumed 11 times more fossilfuels. Further, feed ingredients were varied and included suchitems as dying and diseased animals, fecal material fromother factory farmed animals, blood, feathers and hair, andplastics, which had already led to health scares such asbovine spongiform encephalopathy (‘mad cow disease’). DrKanaly argued that as world per capita incomes and rates ofurbanization grow, the true costs of cheap meat and theethics of this sort of food production need to be seriouslyexamined, since both translate into an increased demand foranimal products.Prof Abhik Gupta noted that energy subsidies for all kindsof food, even vegetables, were enormous in some countries,and mentioned the trend of ‘cage-free’ or ‘free-range’ meat inthe US. Dr Kanaly agreed that it was a small movement, atleast in some parts of the US, but as consumers grew moreaware of livestock conditions producers were potentiallychanging their public face rather than actual practices. Hecited an example of an egg farm in South Carolina owned byCatholic monks who used imagery of care to sell their eggseven though the operation was basically a factory farm. It wasvery difficult for consumers to get accurate information aboutthe sources of their food and how animals are treatedbecause the industry was very reluctant to divulge it.Prof Abhik Gupta from India presented a paper on theneed for application of the precautionary principle withregards to the mass cultivation of biodiesel-yielding plants inbiodiversity-rich areas. Being biodegradable and nonpolluting,increasing use of biodiesel was expected to reducecarbon dioxide emissions and was seen by many as a ‘winwinproposition’ towards meeting the energy requirementsand providing livelihood opportunities in the denselypopulated Asian countries. Prof Gupta argued, however, thathasty and indiscriminate plantation of biodiesel-yielding plantsin Asia, especially in its biodiversity-rich areas, was fraughtwith environmental and ethical concerns. In his home countryof India, the biodiesel crop jatropha was being aggressivelypromoted by government and industry for an area in theNorth-East recognized as a Biodiversity Hot Spot, and inMalaysia and Indonesia, oil palm plantations were usurpingtropical forests. Features such as invasive potential, toxicity,and effects on water and soil content were not being fullyassessed in biofuel proposals. Prof Gupta suggested thatbiofuels be made one of the foci of the project, and thatparticipants or partners could consider building a database onthe different facets of biofuels, especially biodiesels, in orderto be able to make an informed assessment.Prof Gupta was asked about the need for high usage offertilizers on biofuel crops, given that there had beenproblems with the soil for Indian jatropha plantations. Heagreed this was a problem, mentioning a study done by theInternational Crops Research Institute for the Semi-AridTropics (ICRISAT) in India which found that jatropha plantedon marginal land will grow, but without fertilizer and labourintensivecanopy management it will not produce seeds,which are the valuable part of the crop. He questionedwhether farmers would be able to meet these conditions orwhether jatropha might lead to further land degradation andrural indebtedness. Dr N. Manohar wondered if jatropha mightrepresent a similar scenario to the planting of eucalyptus inIndia in the 1960s and 70s, which had negative environmentalimpacts because it lowered the water table. Were there, heasked, site-specific environmental impact assessments donein planning jatropha plantations? Regarding the toxicity ofjatropha, he remembered it being used during his childhooddays as fencing material, as cattle never grazed it and peoplenever touched it. Prof Gupta agreed that eucalyptus wasdamaging, and that site-specific assessments were needed toavoid a similar demand on underground water resources byjatropha, as was already happening with jatropha in otherparts of the world. Huge monocultures would always bringecological problems, and he felt it essential that legal limits beplaced on any kind of monoculture. There also needed to beawareness campaigns, particularly for farmers.An additional comment came from Ms TanujaBhattacharajee on consideration of the issue of food securityas a consequence of energy crop plantations. The export ofbiofuel may result in the import of food which could have asevere impact at the national level, particularly in countriesthat are poor such as Bangladesh or Myanmar. She felt,therefore, that it was not a global solution to encourage orcompel biofuel plantation without analyzing the long-termsocio-economic benefit.These papers were followed by the first working groupsessions of the meeting.The final day of the conference, 28 September, beganwith the session on Energy independence and security. DrSalil Sen of Thailand spoke on ‘Green advertising: Greensupply chain - CSR driven retailing and logistics’. Theconfiguration and context of business at the global level wastransforming, with a growing need for sustainability coupledwith growth. Intensified competition, consumer expectations,and the natural resource crunch were driving corporateleadership to synthesize their corporate social responsibilitieswith corporate strategies. There were some tensions,however, between the imperatives for developing renewableand biofuel resources, and the imperatives for advertising andpromoting high energy consumption luxury products.Prof On-Kwok Lai asked how Dr Sen saw the future forcommunications in terms of green messages, in how theproducts related to the user and producer, which both affectthe extent of the environmental problem. Dr Sen replied thatthe product was taking a back seat now and it was serviceswhich were emerging. People were concerned about theirown health, about societal health and about the sustainabilityof our planet.Dr Jasdev Singh Rai from the United Kingdom spoke on‘Concepts of communities, energy security andindependence’. He outlined three essential concepts thatdefine the relationships between communities, energy andtheir environment: anthropocentric systems which hold thathuman beings are at the centre of God’s design (Abrahamiccultures); ecocentric systems which hold that human beingsare only one life form in the universe (Eastern and otherphilosophies); and post-enlightenment scientific systems withconfidence in human reason to solve every possible problem(modernity). States and communities often view energy fromdifferent perspectives – the state from the rational and thecommunity from other views rooted in past traditions. Energysecurity and energy independence were sources of increasingconflict in the international community, for example, in thecase of Iran. Dr Rai suggested that there was a need toextend the mandate of the International Energy Agency togive it a greater role in setting up secure energy resourcesupplies between countries. There could be internationalsupervision, or even international ownership of, nuclear powerplants and nuclear technologies. Plural outlooks would bestengage marginalised communities. The internationalcommunity should move away from universal conventionsand declarations to multiple systems which are rooted inregional cultures.Dr Ayoub Aby-Dayyeh took issue with some comments ofDr Rai about the history of the relationship between Islam andscience, which Dr Rai later clarified. He was also critical of DrRai’s questioning of our commitment to prolong the humanlifespan at all costs. He felt that population growth, rather thanlengthening the life of human beings, was the waste ofenergy. Dr Rai suggested that longer lives and increased
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